Could use clarification

Ambiguous: I was just reading an online story about the sons of Joe Montana and Wayne Gretzky playing for the same high school, and I came across this paragraph — "Redell, 69, was no stranger to Wayne Gretzky, who remembered him as a quarterback for the Canadian Football League franchise in Hamilton. In 1967, Redell led the Tiger-Cats to the Grey Cup."

That first sentence almost makes you think that Gretzky was the quarterback in Hamilton, and, of course, that's not true. We know that he was a great hockey player. The second sentence makes it obvious that Redell was the quarterback.

They might have said "...Wayne Gretzky, who remembered Redell..."

Word meanings: I looked up ambiguous, and I found "a word, phrase, or sentence whose meaning can be interpreted in more than one way." Yes, that seems to fit.

Muddled: An online ad was looking for "fiction or non-fiction novels." No such thing as a non-fiction novel.

Contact: I can be reached at tgilli52@gmail.com or nc3022@yahoo.com. Also, my Twitter handle is EDITORatWORK.

More EDITOR@WORK blog entries

• You really DO need an editor

• Reminders for would-be novelists

• What I do when I'm editing

• What I charge (it's a deal) and what I edit

• Slogging through the Internet

• J-school: More eyes on your stories

• J-school: Go out and learn

• Rookie mistakes for magazine writers

Entries from The Dog Blog

• Katie cried

• Growl and pull

• 12 years with my dog Lady

• ... said the spider to ...

• The Dog Diary (2014)

• YIP! YIP! The stereo-sound huskies

• What Lady and Michael Jackson had in common

Blog entries from The Auto Racing Journal

• Angel in Black: Remembering Dale Earnhardt Sr.

(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)

• Then Junior Said to Jeff...

(the book of great NASCAR stories)

• My best day as a sports writer

• Jeff Gordon's milk toast to Dale Earnhardt

• Wayne Auton: A life in racing

More blog entries by Tom Gillispie

• Resume for a writer and editor

• An editor's views on powerful writing

• Advice for be and would-be novelists

• Links to TG's stories online

• Favorite quotes

• What I do when I'm editing

Anecdotes by Tom Gillispie

• Wipeout at Death Valley

• Days with rainbows

• A desperate writer working in the dark

• Yer outta there!